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auto_awesome #8 in Rakdos Commander Staples
Blightstep Pathway // Searstep Pathway card art
Live Play Data

Blightstep Pathway // Searstep Pathway

Land // Land · Kaldheim (KHM)
7%
Live Inclusion
Buy on TCGplayer
Times Brought
564
Decks Running
291
Median Cast Turn
4
Drawn → Played
79%
Format
Multiplayer 1v1

7% of tracked Rakdos-identity Commander decks on Playgroup Live run Blightstep Pathway, and when drawn it reaches the battlefield 79% of the time with a median first-play turn of 4.

Blightstep Pathway // Searstep Pathway is the Kaldheim dual land that fixes black-red mana for Rakdos, Mardu, Grixis, and Jund color identities. Across 539 tracked multiplayer Commander games on Playgroup Live, 7% of tracked decks include it, and it appears in 291 of the 3980 distinct decks that have played a live game.

As a land, it enters the battlefield the turn it is played rather than being cast as a spell. 79% of drawn copies reach the battlefield before the game ends, which is directionally high for a utility land. Median first play lands on turn 4, consistent with players deploying it as one of their early land drops rather than holding it. Concentration is healthy: 253 distinct players have brought it to a tracked game, and no single contributor accounts for more than a small slice of the total instances.

The Pathway cycle entered the format as a clean, low-risk answer to two-color fixing. Unlike traditional duals, Pathways do not produce both colors, so deckbuilders who need maximum flexibility sometimes prefer fetch-shock combinations instead. But for Rakdos-core commanders that rarely need to splash a third color, Blightstep Pathway slots in as a reliable, untapped source of either black or red mana on any turn of the game.

At a glance
  • 7% of tracked Commander decks include Blightstep Pathway
  • 79% of drawn copies reach the battlefield before the game ends
  • T4 median turn the Pathway first enters the battlefield
  • 93% battlefield stickiness once played, very high for a permanent
  • 253 distinct players have brought this card to a tracked game
  • 291 tracked decks currently running Blightstep Pathway

First-cast turn

n=107
17%
T1
10%
T2
10%
T3
14%
T4
12%
T5
34%
T6-9
3%
T10+
Median 4 P25 2 · P75 7 · max 10
Cast same turn as drawn 47%

The "good card" funnel

564 brought · 253 players
Brought to game
564
Ever drawn
136
Reached battlefield
107
Still on board at game end
100
79%

Of 564 Blightstep Pathways brought to games, 136 were drawn, 107 of those were played to the battlefield, and the overwhelming majority remained in play through the end of the game.

≥ -4.1pp

Players who cast this card win 30% of the time (n=94) , vs 25% when it never left the library (n=351).

When players drew this card but left it in hand, they won 42% (n=25) — about the same as leaving it in the library. Those players survived long enough to draw it, so the gap above is about the card resolving, not just about surviving.

Observed gap +5.7pp; 95% confidence interval -4.1pp to +15.5pp. Correlational, not causal: powerful payoffs also get cast more often in games you are already winning.

Final zone distribution

153 instances
2.0%
Library
65.4%
Battlefield
13.1%
Graveyard
4.6%
Exile

Most Blightstep Pathways stay in the library across a tracked game, which is expected for any singleton land in a 100-card deck. The battlefield share, while smaller in raw count, represents a reliable land drop whenever the card is drawn.

Commanders that played this card

in tracked games

The commander list spans Rakdos, Mardu, and Grixis identities with no single commander dominating the tally, a sign that Blightstep Pathway is a broadly adopted fixing piece rather than a card tied to one specific archetype.

Card text
Blightstep Pathway // Searstep Pathway card Blightstep Pathway // Searstep Pathway back face

Blightstep Pathway

Land
{T}: Add {B}.

Searstep Pathway

Land
{T}: Add {R}.
Kaldheim (KHM) · Rare · Illustrated by Ravenna Tran

Frequently Asked

How often is Blightstep Pathway drawn in a Commander game?
In 539 tracked multiplayer games where Blightstep Pathway was in the deck, it was drawn 24% of the time. That is a normal draw rate for a singleton land in a 100-card deck. Of those 136 drawn instances, 79% were played before the game concluded. The remainder is largely a game-length effect: lands drawn in the very late game often have no opportunity to be played before the pod finishes.
What turn does Blightstep Pathway usually hit the battlefield?
Median first play is turn 4 across 107 observed casts in Playgroup Live's tracked games. The distribution is spread from turn 1 through turn 10, with a cluster in turns 1-2 representing opening-hand keeps and a second cluster in the mid-game where it fills a needed land drop. The p25 is turn 2 and the p75 is turn 7, so timing varies widely depending on when the card is drawn.
Does playing Blightstep Pathway correlate with winning?
In the current dataset, the normalized win rate when the Pathway reached the battlefield is 30%, versus 25% in games where it stayed in the library. That is a +5.7 percentage-point gap. Both sample sizes are large enough to treat as directional, but the confidence interval overlaps zero, so this should not be read as proof that the land itself creates wins. Better mana fixing helps decks run smoothly, and decks that draw their fixing tend to be the decks that are already positioned well.
Which commanders most commonly run Blightstep Pathway?
On Playgroup Live, the leading commanders include Deadpool, Trading Card and Edgar Markov, each appearing in the most tracked decks with the Pathway, followed closely by Kuja, Genome Sorcerer and Valgavoth, Harrower of Souls. The list spans Rakdos, Mardu, and Grixis color identities, confirming that any deck with both black and red in its identity is a natural home. The commander spread is wide relative to the dataset size, which means no single archetype dominates the card's play pattern.
Is Blightstep Pathway legal in Commander?
Yes. Blightstep Pathway is legal in Commander with no restrictions. It is also legal in Legacy, Modern, Pioneer, Vintage, Historic, Timeless, Duel Commander, Gladiator, and Brawl. It is not legal in Standard, Pauper, or Pauper Commander. It is not on any Commander ban list.
How does Blightstep Pathway compare to other Rakdos dual lands?
Blightstep Pathway always enters untapped and produces either black or red mana, but not both from the same copy. That distinguishes it from fetch-shock combinations (which produce any color but cost life) and from Blooming Marsh-style fast lands (which have conditions). For commanders that commit firmly to a two-color identity, the Pathway's unconditional untapped entry is its main selling point. Decks splashing a third color heavily often prefer more flexible fixing instead. Playgroup Live's data shows the card is most common in pure Rakdos builds, which aligns with that logic.